


Powers I Never Asked For

by SunsetOfDoom



Category: Book of Life (2014), Psychonauts
Genre: F/M, First Crush, Problem Children, as far as ur concerned his first name is 'agent', but not quite a fusion either?, nobody knows xibalba's first name, not really a crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-01 18:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2783768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunsetOfDoom/pseuds/SunsetOfDoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whispering Rock is super boring; Manolo knows everything they have to teach him, partly because his family helped found the Psychonauts themselves. His father won't even let him bring his guitar; though luckily his best friend, Joaquin, usually manages to sneak one in. This year isn't going to be any different- until a wild spitfire of a runaway named Maria falls out of the tree at a camp meeting, and swindles her way into staying. Just for a few days, she says.</p><p>Maybe it might be a little interesting this year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday present for super-spy-spine.tumblr.com !!! go check out this magical glow-worm's blog, they're wonderful. Happy birthday! I'll post pt.2 for Christmas.

“The wars of this modern age--The Psychic Age--are fought somewhere between these damp... curvaceous, undulations.”

Nervous giggles echoed through the small crowd of children as the coach caressed the projection behind him. Manolo stuck out his tongue; he didn’t see what the big deal about brains was. Sure, it was where psychic powers came from, but it was where everything else came from, too. He tapped a pen on his notebook, which he had quietly stuffed with blank sheet music and hidden away in his backpack. His father hadn’t found the notebook, but his guitar hadn’t been so lucky.

"You shall engage the enemy in his own mentality--you shall chase his dreams- you shall fight his demons- you shall live his _nightmares_!"

Coach Oleander stopped mid-sentence for a dramatic pause, putting his hands out to gesture- which, thankfully, blocked a lot of the stupid, gross brain projection on the stage.

All the other kids seemed impressed; Manolo was just bored. He said the same thing _every single year_.

In the silence, a tree branch broke.

“ _Lake monster_!” He heard Joaquin yell with fake panic, and the younger kids screamed, and began to flail about. Chaos reigned, the tiny psi-cadets terrified, trying to run, and the teachers readying for battle with their intruder.

Manolo rested his chin on his hands. He’d seen the lake monster before, roaming the camp after dark; it looked like an enormous metal-plated fish. It was pretty scary, sure- but it was _definitely_ too big to climb a tree. 

Leaves and sticks tumbled out of the old oak, kicked down by something that had to be bigger than a squirrel- though the branches started so far up, he would have figured it impossible to climb, even with levitation.

Their counselors each pulled with mental hands, their target’s struggling evidenced by falling branches, and among the chaos, a small shape came rocketing down from the treetop, bathed in the vibrant red glow of a psychic shield.

But when the figure was held aloft for a moment above the stage, the shield disappeared; underneath was the form of an undersized girl, twisting and kicking.

“It’s just a little girl!” Agent LaMort sighed. 

“It’s all right,” Xibalba called to the rest of them, “we’ve got the situation under control. Calm down, all of you.”

The screaming continued; Dogen in particular wailing, “ _Please don’t kill us, lake monster_!” Joaquin sat quietly in the first row, pleased with his mayhem.

“ _Quiet_!” Xibalba shouted, and they were. He pointed to Joaquin, a clear accusation on his face. Manolo smiled; those two had been getting on each others' nerves for years.

“What’s your name, _querida_?” Agent Caterina asked, quite gently.

Coach Oleander growled, “I’ll find out-” and took a single step forward. 

It jostled his mental hold, and with a _crack-pop_ noise and a shower of red sparks, the girl somersaulted through the air, her skirt flapping. She landed on one knee, the other bent forwards, covered in band-aids.

“My _name_ ,” she shouted, “is _Maria Posada_!” 

She stood; hands on her hips and stance wide, she looked like a tiny Wonder Woman, her short braids and flyaway bangs outlined by the light of the fire.

“And I’m here to be a Psychonaut!”

For the first time in his life, Manolo Sanchez was in love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Manolo has the biggest crush known to man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to super-spy-spine.tumblr.com!

The Coach, on the other hand, looked like he was going to pop a blood vessel. The two agents didn’t seem too happy, either.

“I’ll just...” She edged away, hopping down from the stage. “I’ll sit down here with my fellow Psy-cadets.” A grin spread over her face as she sat down next to Phoebe and Manolo, nudging the other girl. “I like your headphones.”

“Young lady,” Xibalba said, his stern-voice very firmly On, “this is a highly secure government facility.”

Maria shrugged. “Yeah. So?”

He flung a hand out towards the girl, exasperatedly looking to Agent LaMort. “Can somebody-”

“I’ll call her parents.” She had a notebook out, to take down Maria’s first and last name, probably.

“But- you- don’t you train Psychonauts here?” Maria clenched her hands on the half-log seats, digging her nails into the bark. “I- I found this paper in the city...”

Maria quoted frantically from the recruitment pamphlet, the one that Manolo had read ten thousand times in the lodge. But she made it sound new; the phrase “soaring across the astral plane” was as hokey as it could get, written down, but this girl made it sound wistful, glorious even. She stood up next to him and spoke of being an outcast, and yet a hero; and Manolo found his heart filling with wonder.

For the first time in years, he remembered the joy of his powers, the resonating hum of a connection running through all of nature, the freedom of using his mind to fly.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d _liked_ being psychic.

“Please let me stay.” She looked straight at Oleander, who had an expression of sympathy and admiration that Manolo had never seen on his face. He covered his face with one hand.

“Get that soldier a bunk.” 

 

LaMort and Xibalba were _pissed_.

Caterina- she told all the children to call her by her first name, though half the time they were so starstruck that they forgot- managed to wrangle a phone-book and Maria’s father’s name out of her, and called him immediately.

Manolo listened to her end of the call from the lodge; he knew what she sounded like when she was angry, and she wasn’t. Clearly worried, to see a child so far from home, but not angry at Maria. Oleander, on the other hand...

He snuck back across the bridge to the cabins, careful not to be seen by counsellors or wild animals; he knew the patterns of the shadows by heart, and he could always go invisible if he had to.

Stepping carefully around the back of the first cabin, he heard Maria’s voice and his heart did something extremely odd, some kind of jump that threw him off-balance. As he steadied himself, he listened; she was talking to Dogen.

“You’re so lucky. You get to go home.”

“What d’you mean, lucky?” She grumbled. “Home sucks. I barely even know how to use my powers and my dad won’t admit I have ‘em. Isn’t training what this place is for?”

Manolo gritted his teeth. He could hardly remember not knowing how to use his powers; what he did, was painful to think about. Long days and nights of having everyone in their neighborhood echoing through his head, their thoughts and emotions burning through him like a fever. Trying frantically to turn the radio dial to a clear channel until he realized that the overlapping voices weren’t coming from the speakers.

His father could go on and on about making the world a better place, but his powers had never given Manolo much reason to be grateful for having them.

"Dogen, I promise you," she said with a fervent belief, "that if they come for me, what they'll find won't be Maria, the sweet little girl." She spat those words, the same emotion behind them that Manolo had whenever his father called him a prodigy. "No, if they walk through those gates- what was that?"

With a start, Manolo realized that he had not only been connecting his mind to her strong, seeping emotions, he had taken a step forward and cracked a branch. Guilty, he trotted out from behind the cabin.

“Dogen!” He called. It was as good a cover as any; Dogen frequently needed a little... babysitting. “It’s time for bed, let’s get your things.” He glanced over at Maria, covered in dirt and scrapes, and found her looking straight at him; he blinked rapidly, feeling like a deer caught in the middle of a road.

“Hey! New kid!” Manolo sighed with relief at the familiar voice; Phoebe. “C’mon and sleep in our cabin. Not enough girls here anyways.”

“There can never be too many girls.” Maria yelled back. She smiled at him, and Manolo felt like he was about to swallow his tongue.

“G’night. Nice meeting you!” She said as she ran towards the girl’s cabins.

Manolo sighed heavily. Girls were _so weird_.


End file.
